Tag: depression

“The Golden Door”

On By Mike U.In PoetryLeave a comment

“The Golden Door”
(c) 2017 by Michael L. Utley

The golden door is caked with blood
A patinated crimson tracery
Its gilded crest a filigree
Of ruined hope

There is a sense of something there
Beyond this barrier intransigent
A light a balm a restful place
But not for me

What lies beyond is out of reach
No matter how I pound my broken fists
Upon that door immutable
I can’t get in

My voice grown hoarse, I cannot call
Aloud, my screams which echoed through the years
Are silenced now, a whispered wheeze
Is all that’s left

The gulf that separates two shores
Impassable, impossible; a leap
Too great for wretched mortal minds
And riven souls

What have I ever done to earn
The wrath of all creation? Even stars
That light the velvet void grow dim
Regarding me

With pale scornful eyes, the moon
A frigid face inscrutable, its gaze
A blazing condemnation of
My life’s disgrace

And still I stand at golden door
With bleeding hands balled into angry fists
And pound away as stinging tears
Burn blinded eyes

In futile faith that things will change
Before I can no longer will myself
To fight this fruitless battle and
Abandon hope

That something better lies beyond
The golden door

“My Jade Remembrance”

On By Mike U.In Poetry2 Comments

“My Jade Remembrance”
(c) 2019 by Michael L. Utley

I used to know you
9,000 tears ago
A tear for every mile
That kept me from you
A tear for every moment
Not spent with you
A tear for every hope
Not shared with you
9,000 tears

A jade remembrance
For my brown-eyed love
A dusky green heart
On a silver chain
I keep in my pocket
It was for you
Everything was for you
Everything I had
Everything gone except
My jade remembrance

You were already dead
Before I ever met you
Your path etched in stone
I was just a detour
A distraction on your way
Into darkness
A temporary reprieve
An unplanned respite
For the lost girl
The girl who would learn to fly
Or die trying

And I was the lost boy
The boy who had
Never seen the sun
Until I saw you
The boy whose shattered heart
Had one last beat for you
A final crescendo for my
Brown-eyed love

I couldn’t fix you
You weren’t broken
You were destroyed
Crushed by the weight of
Damnation
Hounded by demons
Unknown to me
Yet you smiled at me
And pulled me from
My own abyss
And I loved you

My jade remembrance
Are you still there
Did you close your eyes
And take that leap of faith
Did you learn to fly
Or did you die trying
You didn’t just take your life
You took mine too

I keep your heart in my pocket
On a silver chain

“Ripples”

On By Mike U.In Poetry2 Comments

“Ripples”
(c) 2017 by Michael L. Utley

There are no ripples
On this frozen pond
The puk-puk-puk of
The pebble
Skittering on iced skin
Dampened by
Frost-thick air
Breath caught short
In lung-numbed gasps
Silent words
Suspended
In wintry sighs
Eyes pools of
Frigid tear-prisms
Bitter empty gelid rainbows
Where are you

You missed our flight to Tokyo
The cherry blossoms whispered your name
As Fuji, incurious and remote
Gazed white-helmed
At my solitary shadow
My empty hand
Holding more of you
Than my heart could bear
We did not walk
Beneath flicker-flamed
Paper lanterns
On blood-red bridges
Spanning koi ponds
Under the spring moon
The rising sun
Sought to kiss your cheek
But was denied
As I was denied

You missed auroras
Over Iceland
The Arctic colder
In your absence
The night sky draped
In shimmering iridescent
Thought
The emerald musings of some distant god
Snagged in dark desolation
My own thoughts of you
Caught in my own
Desolation

You missed the candent sands
Of Morocco
Capricious zephyrs
Erasing my footprints
In a desert bereft of
Your footprints
We did not dance
In the summer swelter
Beneath date palms
And stars that sought
To light your way
But failed
Your body absent
In my arms
The scent of your hair
A distant memory which
Hot breezes scatter
In the night

You missed our train
To the Rockies
Where larkspur and columbine
Awaited you with open arms
And later mourned in silence
My singular form without you
By my side
We did not hold hands in
Flower-burst mountain meadows
Azure lakes reflected only
My lone countenance
As conifers murmured
Demurely in cool breezes
Wondering if you
Would ever arrive

You missed our drive
Through New England hills
Autumn maple and hemlock
A conflagration burning for you
Yearning for you
The birches and beeches smoldering
In my heart
Red-orange-gold leaves
Suiciding in silent sadness
Loneliness wearing my face
Stalks these woods
You are nowhere to be found

You missed my arrival
In Singapore
The airport a swarm
Of faces
A blur of oceanic humanity
As I searched for one safe harbor
One stormless island
In this storm of chaos
Your face
A lighthouse to guide me home
Your beacon never appearing
No fog horn guiding me safely
Through treacherous surf
Your bottomless brown eyes
Nowhere
Your smile cut roughly from this mural
Missing
A ragged hole where you should be
In my life

Perhaps you were a
Phantom
All along

Puk-puk-puk
No ripples on this frozen pond
Not enough pebbles remain
To last until springtime thaw
One ripple is all I ask
One ripple to finally reach you
I’ll save a pebble
Just in case

“In Time to Come”

On By Mike U.In PoetryLeave a comment

“In Time to Come”
(c) 2017 by Michael L. Utley

She had that look about her again
Eyes like chips of coruscating amber
Caught in the westering sun
Her over-there gaze snagged
On some distant memory
Like thorn-caught thread
Hands prim and pale
In her denim lap
Amid foxtails and dandelions
And oak shadows

Things move too fast
When they move too slowly
The heat that summer was unbearable
A bludgeon wielded by a chrome sky
Its merciless swath pounding
Everyone everything into submission
We were not spared

I could reach toward her forever
And never touch her
I’ll tell you in time to come, she’d say
Her tired smile dying before
It reached her eyes
Time to come never coming
Never time enough
Time running out

Let’s sit and enjoy the shade, she’d say
The sun slipping languidly
Into oblivion
Her face haloed
In a warm orange aura
My ephemeral love
Ensconced in flames
Flickering
Flickering

Broken pieces of her
Litter the oak-shadowed grass
One touch and she’d shatter
One embrace and she’d be
All over the place
Delicate balance was
The ruse of muses who
Knew nothing of reality
Who knew nothing of
Love and sickness
And the terrible nectar
Of the tainted honeysuckle

Even the birds are quiet

There is no darkness
As black as love
No pit as plumbless
As that filled with regret
Her brown eyes
Smiling and weeping at once
Succumbing to demons
Unknown to me
So much of her slate blank
Her portrait only half-finished
Before the paint dried out
And the canvas rent asunder

Broken pieces of her
Litter the oak-shadowed grass
I used to collect them
Their razor edges
Slicing my hands bloody
Only a few remain
Among the foxtails and dandelions
Her voice only an echo now
I’ll tell you in time to come

“The Farm”

On By Mike U.In Poetry6 Comments

“The Farm’
© 2021 by Michael L. Utley

Nighthawks scream
With evening’s descent
They know the truth
Black god’s-eyes
See everything
From salmon-hued
Heaven
As wings fold
Bird-bombs dive
Preying on the
Prayerless
Powerless
Oblivious
Strident-throated
Shrieks
A mindless alien-avian
Warning
Turn back
There is no hope here

Across the fallow field
Elk bugle mournfully in
Twilight cacophony
A hundred dim smudges
Herding in
Paranoid precision
Against the dusty dun of
Evening’s solemn soliloquy
Scatter
Coagulate
Statue-still
Amidst dusk ground-mist
Trumpet-cries betray blind fear
A prose of unearthly moans
As pinyon-sage-scented breeze
Lifts this omen skyward
Turn back
There is no hope here

Dead-yellow foxtails
And cheatgrass
Bend
Break
As I pass
A sickly meadow of
Thin-boned weeds
And cloying sage
Crackling underfoot as
Stickers pin-cushion
Socks and shoelaces
Ground beetles
And spiders flee
Stupidly
Languidly
Dissolve into
Cracked earth
Disappear
Each footstep
Dust-choke-inducing
The shrill trill of crickets
Distant
Distracted
Dispassionate
They know, too
Turn back, they sing
There is no hope here

A skeleton crew of
Haggard, stunted trees
Stands sentinel
Against the coming darkness
Pinyons felled by
Insidious Ips beetles
Squat
Naked
Bony
Sap-dried cones
Long dead
Among carpets of
Desiccated yellowed needles and
Sparrow-emptied pine nut shells
Tinder awaiting a wildfire
Fragrant junipers stand
Amidst dead-berry piles in
Shaggy bark-suits
Peeling like scorched dusty
Sun-burnt skin
Swarming with black ants
Pungent piss-scent
Overwhelming as
Paper-bark crawls
In the shadows
The subliminal hiss of an
Errant breeze
Wheezes dark portents
Among barkless boughs
Turn back
There is no hope here

Muffled yips and
Strangled howls
Ride chilly currents from
Far obscure fields
As coyotes practice
Weird secret sorcery
In the gloaming
The cries of the damned
Of pain
Of madness
Of red-eyed tricksters
In shadow-garb
Preparing for midnight hunts
And the tearing of flesh
Yellow grins reeking of
Fear and dead meat
Champ and drool as
Festivities draw near
Their primal chaos-chorus
Announcing to all
Turn back
There is no hope here

In hushed
Sepulchral silence
Muted coos of
Mourning doves
Float softly in
Penitential pleas
Stillness magnifying
Lilting lamentation
Grief too much to bear
Their sorrow-song
An ache that
Never ends
Unmendable
Rends hearts
Cleaves souls
Tears flow
Unknowingly
Purity and
Sadness
Immeasurable loss
A calming balm
Inadequate to heal
All that ails
Ineffectual against
Forces of fear
Reduced to a
Whispered admonition
Turn back
There is no hope here

The broken garden gate
Aslant on rusted hinges
Unleveling the horizon
Of faded, ephemeral corn stalks
And rotting squash-husks
A tangle of ancient weeds
And briar bushes
Encases this bleak place
Age-drained of all
Color and scent
Poisonous soil
Long since emptied of life
Only dead things grow here
Rows of sorrow
Trellises of despair
A forlorn bounty of
Loss and regret
A stilled silence
Proclaiming
Turn back
There is no hope here

The house
A gray thing
Hunched against
The gloom of
Bruise-tinted sky
Like some
Feral beast
Skull-socket eyes
Peer
Blackly
Blindly
Balefully
Through diseased elms
As cement tongue lolls
Cracked and pitted
From front door
To yard gate
Lawn only a distant memory
Weed-choked
Littered with
Shattered window glass
And random roof shingles

Silence

Stillness

It’s been years
Since I was here
Since I fled
Since that day
The monster was real then
The fear was real
And it’s been with me
All the while

Concrete dust crunches
Bone-like underfoot
I reach the front door
Push through a
Latticework of spider-silk
Filled with memories
So many memories
Dust and the scent of
Ancient mildew
Rotting wood
Hang in mote-filled air
It’s smaller now
Empty
Hollow
Ceiling plaster
Coats rotting carpet
In a patina of snow
Water-stained drywall
Bent and bulging
My room is there
Dark and cobwebby
Kitchen
Sisters’ bedroom
Parents’ room
Bathroom
Everything accounted for
Except the monster

There is no hope here
Dead monsters leave
Memory echoes
Down the years
A legacy of pain and fear
And while there is
No monster here
Neither is there reason
For rejoicing
This place is dead
Just like my father
The monster
Nothing will ever be
As it was
So much lost
Still more buried in
Dark locked crates
In my mind
I look around
One final time
Then make my way
Out the door
And into the night

It’s time to leave
The farm behind

“The Apple Tree”

On By Mike U.In Poetry7 Comments

“The Apple Tree”
© 2013 by Michael L. Utley

The apple tree
Behind the house
Has long ago
Stopped bearing fruit

It stands alone
In sickness bold
Half its branches
Dead or dying

Leaves the hue
Of summers past
Defy the sun
The pouring rain

Bound there in
White-knuckled grip
On mournful twigs
On listless boughs

As autumn fades
The leaves succumb
Each one a
Small gold suicide

Each gilded drop
A dying spark
A universe now
Mute in death

No one knows
This apple tree
Behind the house
A secret world

Where eons pass
And ages fade
Unknown to all
Except to me

And chilly sun
And hurried cloud
And thoughtless bird
And bitter breeze

The pristine snow
Has covered all
A silent shroud
Has fallen here

An icy dirge
A funeral pall
As winter metes
A healing balm

In sanguine hope
That springtime sun
Will summon forth
The apple tree

But even so
It saddens me
This futile thing
This apple tree

That cannot see
It matters not
If life abounds
When living hurts

To live alone
Infirm and weak
While bony fingers
Seek the sky

And wretched leaves
In breezes weep
And shattered dreams
Litter the ground

In autumn piles
Of yellow dross
That go unseen
And fade away

“The Thing on the Corner”

On By Mike U.In PoetryLeave a comment

“The Thing on the Corner”
© 2013 by Michael L. Utley

The thing on the corner
That squalid revenant
That only I could see
As my daily peregrination
Took me through the city
Past vulgar monuments
To capitalism and greed
Through roiling seas of
Soulless apathetic drones
The mindless rhythm of
Humanity
The ebb and flow of futility

The thing on the corner
That filthy phantom
That caught my eye
And no one else’s
A sort of uncanny gravity
About him
That caused my pace to slacken
As if I were being lured into
Some kind of anomalous orbit
Around this peculiar specter
Just a tug and then I was free
To continue along my way
In my daylight world of
Noise and glare and stench

The thing on the corner
That wretched eidolon
That haunted my dreams
That stood in judgment of
All who passed before him
On this unremarkable corner
In this forgotten city of despair
The bastard kin of
Minos, Aeacus and Rhadamanthus
His throne a decrepit cardboard box
His shroud a blanket that reeked of
Age and disease
His crown a greasy scarecrow of gray hair

The thing on the corner
That defiled shade
That I can barely see as
I approach him
He is a mirage
A flicker and a shimmer
I squint my eyes as I stand before him
There is static, a signal dying
Over the expanse of eternity
An imperceptible howl from
Another universe
I reach out a tentative hand
And touch him
For an instant he is there before me
Vital and filled with the
Energy of supernovas
His eyes are alive and
Radiate truth the brightness
Of a hundred suns
He is real
He does not speak but
Only looks at me
For a moment
For a lifetime
Then turns away
And fades to
Nothingness

And the oblivious masses mill
Through the city streets like cattle
To the slaughter
And the city sighs
As anesthetic night descends

“That Road Don’t Go Nowhere”

On By Mike U.In Poetry4 Comments

“That Road Don’t Go Nowhere”
© 2013 by Michael L. Utley

That road don’t go nowhere mister

Raspy sigh of too many cigarettes
Grease-blackened claw points in the general direction of
Eternity
Stench of gasoline and sweat
Indecipherable name emblazoned on
Filthy coveralls
Gas pump chugs and stutters
Connected to my car by an umbilical cord of
Ancient dinosaurs
His eyes lost in pools of wrinkles and regrets
As my eyes follow his finger
Nothing but rock and sand and the howls of
The lost
In this desolation

Road and horizon merge in a
Fitful seizure of mirage
The heat a coda to all things here
Dull and dusty sage and creosote bushes
A wretched effigy of life
In this hardscrabble wasteland
Not real
Not real at all
Nothing lives here
Nothing can live here
Nothing at all

That road don’t go nowhere mister

In the distance
A phantom zephyr on the highway
A sinuous dust devil
Snakes from earth to chrome-hued sky
This eldritch thing
It dances and writhes and bespeaks of
Ancient knowledge
An augur of blind terror
In the breakdown lane
Of this faded ribbon of
Cracked and sticky asphalt

It can’t get me here
My mind whispers
Here in this run-down
LAST GAS FOR 255 MILES sanctuary
This final outpost of sanity
Sun-bleached boards and
Rusted gas pumps
Stand sentinel against
What lies beyond
Against what should not be
But is anyway

That road don’t go nowhere mister

The gas pump rattles to a stop
His trembling hands disconnect the hose
In post-coital silence
Hi-test fumes cloying in the
Furnace heat
The old man takes my money

The world has stopped on it axis
The day is perfectly still
There is no sound
There is only the sterile heat
Of the desert
And the blackness of what is to come

He grabs my shoulder through the car window
His ancient hand a talon digging deep
His pleading eyes rheumy and weeping
He swallows
His Adam’s apple bouncing in his
Grimy neck

That road don’t go nowhere mister

There is lunacy in his weeping eyes
And there is truth
And I smile at him
And something passes between
The two of us
A last vestige of humanity
Before the coming storm
I glance in my rear-view mirror
There is nothing behind me
There is everything behind me
There is no going back

I swallow a knot of panic
I look at the man
This road doesn’t go anywhere
I say
But it’s the only road there is

And I pull away from the station
The old man a scarecrow in the mirror
Arms akimbo
Sweat-stained cap askew on his head
And then he is gone
Devoured by the nothingness behind me

I am alone on the road

There is no going back

“Air/Water/Air”

On By Mike U.In Poetry1 Comment

“Air/Water/Air”
© 2012 by Michael L. Utley
 
There is no air
Down there
Down in the dark
Where I choke
On my life
Nature abhors
A vacuum
But rage
Thrives
Therein
 
Emptied
Gutted
A carcass
Rotting
Under a red
Alien sun
Gasping a mere
Reflex
I am a fish
Cast upon the shore
Drowning on nothing
Dried eyes
Blind
Bulging
I see nothing
So nothing exists
The calm susurrus of the waves
Is the great deception
I cannot reach
The water
I am not fit for the
Fisherman’s net
The cry of the gull
The sigh of sea grass in the breeze
The languid flap of my tail
The hard hot stones of the beach
The stench of all things
The sea
 
I try to scream
But there is no
Air

“Night Thoughts”

On By Mike U.In Poetry8 Comments

“Night Thoughts”
© 2012 by Michael L. Utley
 
I vomit out myself again each night
When lights go out and tired thoughts awake
To find that darkened mere from which to slake
Their thirst for dark dominion.  In the bright
And sane pedantic musings of the light
Where every thought, word, deed presumes to take
On tones of gilded gravity, I stake
My soul against the coming evening’s fight.
 
The day is done; I’m with my thoughts, alone
And sleep cannot—will not—this night prevail.
My mind, a dynamo, begins to race
And images appear as if they’ve grown
In some dark, dank and fetid fen.  I quail
As my true self confronts me, face to face.
 
I see myself most clearly in the dark
When eyes stare listlessly into the gloom
Of my unlighted silent little room
And clarity has never missed its mark.
The diff’rence between day and night is stark,
Where shadows rob the flower of its bloom
And night-noise bespeaks harbingers of doom
Who from abyssal shores will soon embark.
 
There is no madness here; there is a shift
Of light to darkness only, but in fine
It colors every thought a darker hue
And ushers in a sort of seismic rift
That sullies every fruit on every vine
And every thought and every feeling, too.
 
The day’s lucidity reduced to lies,
I gaze at the abyss and there I see
On some far distant shore another me
Whose own lucidity is in demise.
The shadows—living things amid the cries
And cruel cacophony of things that flee
The light—surround me as if to decree
To all assembled, “This is where hope dies.
 
“What’s done in daylight holds no power here.
We’ll strip the varnish from your petty dreams
And rid you of your sanity anon.
For daylight is a poor façade for fear
And reason ineffectual when screams
Will render moot the light you count upon.”
 
And once again, like every other night
The battle lines are drawn upon the sands
Of sleep not yet attained, and on these lands
Depression pits the dark against the light.
And once again, like every other fight
I fall upon the ground, the shadows’ hands
Upon my throat in icy burning bands,
All thoughts of hope now fading out of sight.
 
And then from distant shores of the abyss
Across the chasm, lilting in the dark
A plaintive, calming voice, a gentle weep
Touches my mind, my soul, as if a kiss
Were sent to me upon a winging lark:
“Seek sleep,” it says to me, “let go, seek sleep.”
 
And I give in and in surrendering
I leave behind the darkness and the din
Of shadowlands where battles rage therein
And naught is won or lost.  And that’s the thing
That catches in my mind just like the ring
Of distant bells, discordant in their thin
Attempt to quell the heart surfeit of sin
In any man whose sleep the night won’t bring.
 
And leaves unanswered still my current plight:
Is truth found in the darkness or the light?